


Labeling System

by EvilMuffins



Category: Dangan Ronpa, Dangan Ronpa 3: The End of 希望ヶ峰学園 | The End of Kibougamine Gakuen | End of Hope's Peak High School
Genre: Denial of Feelings, F/F, Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-22
Updated: 2017-10-22
Packaged: 2019-01-05 03:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12182097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilMuffins/pseuds/EvilMuffins
Summary: The thing about betrayal, her mother had told her once, was that it was like pulling off a band-aid. It was best to just get it out of the way, and have the anticipation over and done with. Once someone showed you her true colors, you wouldn’t have to doubt her anymore. You would know where you stand.---Ruruka is sent out on a mission with her least favorite traitor.





	Labeling System

**Author's Note:**

  * For [revolutionator](https://archiveofourown.org/users/revolutionator/gifts).



Ruruka clicked her tongue, eyes narrowing as she peered into the lab.

It seemed that every time she passed by Seiko, the traitor was turning something over in her hands, muttering to herself as she read over some label or another. The medications she worked with daily, every piece of food she crammed into that stupid brace-face, every ingredient was scrutinized.

The sound of Ruruka finally clearing her throat caused the pharmacist  to look up from her work, acknowledging her co-worker standing in the doorway.

“Oh, I’m sorry, Ruruka-chan” Seiko responded, setting down the pill bottle on her work counter in order to give Ruruka her full attention. “Did you need something?”

Ruruka grimaced. Seiko’s eager-to-please act always left a bad, burnt, taste in her mouth akin to that of failed caramel. She jabbed the tip of her thumb between her teeth, chewing absently as she wondered once again if there wasn’t some way to convince Tengen to let her go with someone else instead. Just because she and Izayoi had broken up recently, didn’t mean that she wouldn’t still rather be sent out with him _. Anyone was better than her.  
_

“The old man wants us to ship out,” Ruruka said finally.

“He found out where the other Remnants are hiding?” Seiko asked hopefully.

Ruruka sneered. “Ruruka guesses even if you can’t be trusted to help out your best friend, at least we can always count on you to state the obvious.”

She watched in silence from the doorway, arms crossed, as Seiko scurried about her lab- mousey, nervous thing that she was- pouring over the labels on various amber bottles before carefully packing them into her bag. As to whether the drugs were for her own use, or to force onto the enemy, Ruruka knew as little as she cared.

Having already packed her own arsenal of sweets before approaching Seiko, it wasn’t long before the two were prepared to set out into the ruined streets.

* * *

 

Ruruka had been nineteen the first time she had ever seen a corpse.

While attending Hope’s Peak, she had been too busy to watch all that much TV, let alone the news. After her expulsion, however, the days had stretched on, pulled longer and thinner like taffy, as she sat alone in her room.

The entire student body had been massacred by the Reserve Course, who then took their own lives. It was impossible to avoid the coverage, even if there been anything better to do than watch.

The footage had shown the bodies. It was impossible not to; they were everywhere, the campus littered with them.

Seiko was a traitor.

Seiko had saved both her and Izayoi through their expulsion.

_Impossible._

It was dumb luck. That one kouhai of their’s, the kid with the cotton candy hair, his ‘talent’ was proof of luck’s true existence, wasn't it?

Ruruka was freshly twenty when she saw a dead body up close, having just been recruited for the Foundation, alongside Izayoi.

She soon discovered that Seiko had been brought on board as well. _Of course she had_ , Ruruka realised bitterly. It wasn’t a comment on the traitor’s skill, nor her moral standing as a person- there simply weren’t all that many Super High School Level students left.

Ruruka wasn’t special, and here was an entirely new building full of people that she couldn’t trust.

 _The Future Foundation._ It was nothing more than a label announcing to the world that they weren’t yet among the dead.

At twenty-two, the bodies littered the city streets she walked along, Seiko trailing behind like a puppy.

She wondered if the stench might permanently screw up her sense of smell. If this little jaunt affected her ability to perform her talent, there would be bodies inside the Foundation building as well as out.

“Ruruka-chan?”

“What?” she snapped. _God, was she going to yammer the entire mission?_

The pharmacist cringed, but continued. “If you…um…want to wave this under your nose, it’ll help with the smell…”

As she spoke, Seiko held out a small glass bottle filled with something grainy- a smelling salt, Ruruka guessed.

Begrudgingly, Ruruka leaned in, taking a whiff. Even if it were some poison Seiko was planning to off her with, in that moment, even death seemed better than the reeking all around them.

Almost immediately, rather than that of rotting flesh, only a gentle scent of flowers settled into her nostrils.

Ruruka refrained from thanking her.

The two walked on in silence for sometime, save for an occasional grunt or hiss of frustration as they stumbled over rubble. _Didn’t Seiko ever talk?_

_How creepy._

Although it wasn’t the first time Ruruka had mulled it over- the pharmacist had been a near ubiquitous specter when she lay in bed at night, haunting her thoughts ever since the break up with Izayoi a handful of weeks ago- she still found it difficult to remember just what she had seen in Seiko back during their school days.

“…Ruruka-chan?”

“What now?” she snapped, whirling around to face her companion.

“You, err, never told me just where the target was spotted…or who it is we're after.”

It had been so long since she had seen Seiko without her mask, Ruruka realised as the other girl spoke, the absence of her lips causing Ruruka's imagination to supply them instead, pink and soft as they formed needless words behind the cloth. Couldn’t she just follow her lead like she always had?

 _Ah._ That was what she had liked about her back then, wasn’t it?

The confectioner dug into her bag, pulling out a bag of pastel macarons, perfectly smooth and impeccably shaped.

“Ruruka will tell you if you eat one.” She dangled the bag in front of Seiko as if teasing a dog with a bone.

Seiko’s eyebrows knitted so tightly enough that Ruruka’s grandmother would have asked what pattern she had used. “Ruruka-chan…you know I can’t do that. I’ll get sick…”

_Liar._

Ruruka sighed, cramming the sweets back into her bag, with no regard for how they crumbled. “The one that used to be on the Health Care Committee. Dark hair, attention whore?” Ruruka kicked at pebble of broken concrete as she turned to face forward again, picking up her pace. “Tsukimi? Anyway, she’s holed up in an old dentist’s office around here, or at least that’s what the old man’s intel says.”

“Tsumiki,” Seiko corrected softly. “Mikan-chan…”

Of course Seiko had known her, Ruruka thought as a twinge of something danced around her skull ( _no, not jealousy…who would be jealous of someone spending time with a traitor?_ ). Seiko had been part of the same Committee as well, hadn’t she?

And there was the other thing- Free meds. That was all their friendship had been, right? Sycophantic loyalty and homebrew painkillers?

As Ruruka continued to brood, a sharp, metallic noise skittered across her thoughts.

“Ruruka-chan!” Seiko shouted from behind her. “Run!”

Rather than take her advice, Ruruka spun around, following Seiko’s terrified gaze to see what might have been described as one of the Monokumas scurrying at an alarming speed for something on three legs, bursting out from a dark doorway that had been left open on one of the buildings, single blue eye staring wildly out of a ruined face.

“What the hell is that thing?”

“Go!” Seiko shouted, jamming her hands into her pockets in order to pull out two separate amber bottles.

Both women knew very well that the downside of Ruruka’s mind-altering sweets recipe was that it only worked on human beings.

It was as if Ruruka were under the effect of something herself, hand moving on its own to grasp Seiko’s, bottles clattering to the blacktop as they smashed, scattering pills and liquid into a horrible soup on the ground.

Dragging the smaller woman along, Ruruka broke into a run before ducking into an alley as the wretched thing tore after.

A dead end.

Ruruka should have been scared as she gasped breath, back against brick, but Seiko’s hand was warm through the soft leather of her glove.

Using her other hand, Seiko fumbled for another bottle as the machine clattered down the alley, eating up the mere feet between under it’s twisted legs.

At the same time, a laugh sounded from up above. _Upupupu…_

“It was herding us here…” Ruruka realised.

Everything went dark.

* * *

 

The thing about betrayal, her mother had told her once, was that it was like pulling off a band-aid. It was best to just get it out of the way, and have the anticipation over and done with. Once someone showed you her true colors, you wouldn’t have to doubt her anymore. You would know where you stand.

 

 

The first clue Ruruka had that she wasn’t dead was the searing pain in her arm, contrasting strangely with the softness cradling her throbbing head.

Ruruka fought her eyes open, only to be met with a lavender pair, swimming with tears.

“Thank goodness…”

“Nnn…what happened?” Ruruka asked, still in a daze as she realised that Seiko must be holding her head in her lap. She had taken her gloves off in order to run a soothing hand through Ruruka’s hair, hat apparently lost in the explosion.

Her body hurt too much to move herself off of Seiko’s thighs, Ruruka thought, although she made no attempt to try it. They were surprisingly supple for those belonging to someone who refused to eat sugary foods.

“There was another Monokuma,” Seiko explained, “On top of the building. It had a grenade...”

Finally pulling her eyes away from Seiko, Ruruka took notice of the empty medicine bottles scattered a few feet away. What kind of toll that sort of thing must take on a person’s body, she wondered. The hand on her forehead was trembling.

“Are you hurt?” Seiko asked quickly, worried by Ruruka’s lack of response. “I have something you could take…”

“Ruruka's fine,” Ruruka lied, shifting her injured arm. “I’m fine.”

Seiko had saved her once again. The realisation crashed down upon her like more fallen brick.

There was no way around it, if Seiko hadn’t been there, Ruruka would have died. Her self-loathing hadn’t yet reached the point where that was something to be desired.

On second thought, she should have let the pharmacist drug her up. That way, she would have an excuse for what she was about to do. She had hit her head, hadn’t she? _Yeah that was it…_ That was why she was leaning up, good hand braced on Seiko’s shoulder as she pressed her lips to the studded cloth of her mask. Stiff for a moment, the outline of plump lips soon pushed back, dark fabric soon darker still, growing damp between them.

“Ruruka-chan…” Seiko panted, pulling aside the mask as they parted. “What…what are…?”

_Another label._

Love? Girlfriend? Friends with benefits, like they were still back in freakin’ high school?

“Ruruka... doesn’t know,” Ruruka answered, shaking her head as she climbed to straddle the other girl’s lap where she still sat on the cold, hard concrete, rubble and dust all around, like powdered sugar surrounding the strawberry on cake.

All that she did know was that Seiko’s now exposed lips were very tempting, and that they held the bitter bite of medicine as she tasted greedily.

 

 


End file.
